To date, relatively little is known about the nature of the demand for high-speed rail (HSR) soon after inauguration of the services, despite close to 50-year experience of HSR operation and 17 166 km of HSR network around the world. This is a real lacuna given the scale of HSR construction around the world, the amount of resources committed to it, the desired accessibility, economic and environmental effects associated with HSR development and the relatively poor track record of forecasting demand for HSR services. Focusing on mode substitution and induced demand effects, this review aims to fill the gap in knowledge about the ex-post demand for HSR services in order to facilitate a learning process for the planning of the future HSR network. Although there is not much evidence on the demand for HSR services and existing evidence is largely influenced by route-specific characteristics, a methodological limitation that must be acknowledged, the evidence presented allows a better characterisation of HSR as a mode of transport. The review shows that the demand for HSR a few years after inauguration is about 10–20% induced demand and the rest is attributed to mode substitution. In terms of mode substitution, in most cases the majority of HSR passengers have used the conventional rail before. Substitution from aircraft, car and coach is generally more modest.

It is increasingly evident that harnessing the potential synergetic relationships that exist between certain policy measures can significantly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of policy interventions. However, while normative sentiments of “integrated policy” and “joined-up government” are well-established, minimal academic attention has, thus far, been paid to considerations of how such relationships might be strategically advanced in promoting effective policy interventions. Framed in relation to transport policy, this paper, thus, tentatively proposes a heuristic framework that seeks to engage with the major conceptual and procedural concerns involved in bona fide “policy packaging”. Wary of naive prescription, the framework is not intended to function as a universal blueprint for policy-making. Rather, we aim to critically examine a number of salient principles that appear to have generic policy relevance across institutional contexts and jurisdictional scales. Fundamentally, the paper argues that while policy packaging can certainly support effective and efficient policy-making—not least through enhancing interventions' implementation and the ex ante mitigation of unintended effects—the packaging process requires a deep and holistic appreciation of policy subsystems, together with a structured approach, if its benefits are to be genuinely realized.

Certain developed countries have experienced the ‘peak car’ phenomenon. While this remains to be confirmed longitudinally, it looks certain that future mobility in Europe and elsewhere will be shaped by a particular technological development: driverless or autonomous transport. The ‘autonomous car’ ignites the imagination, yet the research and debate on this topic largely focus on the ‘autonomous’ and not adequately on the ‘car’ element. Like any new technological development, autonomous transport presents ample opportunities to better our mobility system, but similarly it carries risks and can lead into a future mobility that exacerbates, rather than relieves, current deficiencies of our mobility systems, including its high carbon and high cost characteristics. Now it is high time to explore these, before we lock ourselves into the autonomous car future. Using Low Carbon Mobility (LCM) as a guiding framework to assess mobility patterns and based on an extensive literature review, this paper aims to explore where there is a gap between the likely and desirable outcomes when developing the autonomous car and suggest how we might reduce it. Moreover, enhancing on global empirical evidence and forecasts about the opportunities and threats emerging from ICT deployment in transport and initial evidence on the development of the autonomous car, the paper concludes that a desirable outcome will only come if technological development will be accompanied by a social change. A change where public and sharing will be seen as superior to private and individual transport, could make the autonomous car a blessing.

One of the main evolving trends in the transport system is the assimilation of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and other sophisticated hi-technology innovations into it. Those processes and practices are increasingly referred to as the “Smart Mobility” paradigm. In this paradigm, ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ are often considered synonymous, or at least complementary to each other. This research aims to examine the extent to which ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ are aligned with each other by conducting a survey amongst the main actors within smart mobility. These actors are referred to as transport innovators or entrepreneurs. The survey of n = 117 entrepreneurs shows that there is a mismatch between interpretation and understanding of what is ‘smart’ and what is ‘sustainable’. It is clear that the concern of those transport entrepreneurs is primarily with commercial considerations and that their appreciation of what it takes to advance towards a more sustainable transport system is lacking. The belief amongst those entrepreneurs, it emerges, is that technological developments alone, specifically with respect to autonomous and connected vehicles, can lead to sustainable transport. This should be a real concern if those same actors are the ones who lead and pave the way forward for transport planning.

The role of governments in the regulation of potentially beneficial low carbon practices, such as car sharing, has proved difficult, as there are many different actors involved and as existing practices can be undermined. The mobility sector provides clear evidence of these dilemmas, as a wide range of users need to be engaged in the discourse over the innovations, and as existing governance structures may be unsuitable for addressing both the opportunities and limitations of innovation. This paper focuses on the sustainability implications of shared mobility and the need for new approaches to governance. A qualitative study of car sharing in London is used to examine the ideas, incentives, and institutions of the key actors involved in this sharing sector. The elements of change and continuity in the emerging sharing economy indicate the different possibilities for enhancing sustainable mobility. Any search for an alternative governance regime should take account of the ideational factors that would require an understanding of the different incentives needed to accommodate the full range of actors involved with the sharing economy.

This article investigates the potential for environmental benefit from the introduction of the High Speed Train (HST) on the London–Manchester route in the UK, focusing on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The lifecycle carbon emission of HST is assessed, and its sensitivity to demand changes is analyzed for several scenarios. Based on the UK Government demand assumptions, the analysis shows relatively limited potential for reduction in CO₂ emissions. In 2033, overall CO₂ reduction due to HST operation on the route is estimated at 100,000 tCO₂ per annum, which is less than 0.1% of the total UK domestic transport emissions in 2007.